I shove him away, and he falls back, landing on a couch, his back hitting the armrest awkwardly. He cries out in pain. He really has gotten frail in his old age.
Marco slowly gets up, pointing a shaky finger at me. “Watch yourself, boy. One word and my men will tear you limb from limb.”
I scan to see who he brought with him to protect himself. Only three men. All young. Stupid. Disloyal.
And I have four men waiting outside the door, all of whom I trust with my life.
I feel my blood pressure rise when I realize that it’s now or never. Either I’m going to kill Marco and take over or he’s going to take Sofia away and harm her irreparably.
I call my soldiers’ names, and they immediately walk inside, filing in one by one. A look of confusion painted on all of their faces when they see Marco on the couch looking hurt.
“What the fuck are you doing, Alessandro?” Marco asks.
“I’m going to kill you and take over this family.”
“What?” he cackles, thinking this is an empty threat.
But it’s not.
This is not how I wanted to do it. I wanted to kill Marco tactfully, in a way with lower odds of backfiring. A way where others would assume that I was the one behind it but not in a way that could prove his death was my doing.
But Sofia broke rule number five: No man should ever see her without a shirt.
I ignore him and address my soldiers. “Aim your guns at Marco’s men.”
They look apprehensive but comply.
Marco cackles. “What the fuck are you doing?” He nods to his men. “Kill Alessandro.”
They tentatively reach for their weapons.
“It’s not wise for you three of you to do that. If I don’t kill Marco today, someone else surely will within the next year. Many of us are conspiring against him. And you all will go down with him on that day. But today? Stand back, and all of you will be promoted to captain within the next ten years.”
Their behaviors vary. One takes a giant step back, holding his hands up in the air. Another continues to look confused. And the third points his gun at me.
I lift my chin at him and then gesture towards my men. “You fire your gun, and all hell will break loose in this room—”
An explosion followed by a crash sends me reflexively towards the ground.
Then another pop and Marco’s guard dog is on the ground, a bullet clean through his skull.
Everything moves in slow motion as I take in my surroundings. The kid on the ground, a bullet through my TV—he was a terrible shot otherwise it would be lights out. Antonio moves his gun from the dead body to the confused guard, who drops his weapon on the ground with a trembling hand.
Sofia screams in the other room. But I know the bullet is likely lodged in the television or the wall behind it, and couldn’t have hit her. But it’s still difficult for me not to run in there right now and double-check.
Marco looks scared for the first time in my life and looks towards his two remaining men. Both of them are standing there with their hands up. I know Marco doesn’t carry a gun with him anymore. A foolish decision he made long ago to blindly trust all of his men to save him.
But now he has no one.
I stalk towards Marco as he backpedals away from me until he hits the wall.
“When Sofia moved in, she had the carelessness to stand there in only a bra in front of Antonio.” I give Antonio a quick nod to let him know I’m not speaking negatively about him. “After I cooleddown, I chalked it up to a difference in cultures. But do you know what I told her in the heat of the moment?”
I throw a punch, landing on Marco’s jaw. That knocks him to the ground easily. For a moment, I’m terrified that somehow killed him—I would be devastated if it ended that quickly. Then his eyes blink open at me. Those eyes that used to seem so cold, those eyes I used to fear as a child, now look at me in abject horror.
“I told her that if another man ever saw her without a shirt on, I’d gouge his eyes out.”
He scrambles away until he’s pressed against the wall by the balcony door.
